Fathers – Part 1

Story By Dave Cohen

Part 1

We work every day, the building of the temple our sacred task. They gaze up at us, their faces wide and soft. Sweat soaks our clothes while the Sire’s twisted children recline on shaded balconies jutting out from the completed levels below. They do nothing but eat and use our labor and suffering for entertainment. My father’s house sits off in the distance. I wonder if he’s still alive. Once I enjoyed watching the tower from the backyard. It had been new then, only a few levels tall.

On one side of me a gaunt older man groans as he wipes sweat from his eyes. I yell for him to be careful but his foot catches on a toolbox. He falls like I’ve seen so many others fall. For a few minutes there’s laughter beneath us. I keep working, sawing a board in two as the racket dies down. A new boy named Hus sobs as he lifts a small hammer. It strikes a nail on the side of the head, bending it.

“You have to take a second and focus.” I yell at him. “People can fall at any time. Get used to it.”

I was weak and scared like Hus when I first arrived at the temple. Now the heaviest hammer felt like a toy. If I’m tired, I think of the Sire’s shambling gait or my father sneering, Attis, I doubt you can ever be a real man now. None of the others who had been at the tower when I arrived are still alive, having tumbled away from accidents, pushes, or despair. Hate sustains me, but I still hope to become what I cannot be.

I pull the ruined nail and use a hammer the size of Hus’ forearm to set a new one with a single stroke. “I used to be nervous too, and it almost killed me.” I tell him. “Get your body and mind strong or jump.”

My words hurt him, but this isn’t a place for the sensitive. We work in silence, Hus’ hands shaking before each measured swing. Below us, hands clap. The Sire appears at the end of the balcony taking slow steps with bowed legs. His robe lies snug around his torso but billows out below the waist, hiding his oddly large lower half. Stringy white hair descends from his scalp over his shoulders and back.

“Attis, he looks sick.” Hus whispers. “How old do you think he might be?”

I shrug. We’d been told the Sire was a god from the skies, but he looked like a feeble elderly man.

Hus grins. “Those clothes make him look like a mop, don’t they? Like a handle on the top and ropey stuff on the bottom.”

As I start to snap at him, laughter makes my body shake.

“Attis, why does he walk that way?”

I answer Hus with honesty, that I don’t know the answer but that the clothes do make him look like a mop. Our laughter stops as a wife comes to inspect our work. She’s my age, slim and tall with brown eyes and curly, blonde hair. On either hand, one of the children waddles, drool and scraps of food coating their wide chins.

“Children, do you see the workers? They come from where Mama used to live, a place where people are unhappy and live without purpose.” She smiles. “And that mound over there is where the ones who fall are buried.” Her eyes linger on me. “Your flesh looks powerful, an intriguing casing.” She turns her head to Hus. “And this nervous one may prove useful to us yet.” She turns and leads the children away, their globe-shaped heads smiling back at us.

Hus and I both stare down at the mound of the dead. Like the temple, it also grew over the years. Some of those lying in it once tormented me before I became strong and clever. No punishment came from killing another worker, just another wagon pulling up during the next few days with another who had been condemned. Someday I’d join the dead, maybe then I’d find peace. In the meantime, no one approached me as I relieved and cleaned myself. Bloody noses and black eyes made sure of it.

♦

The next day the oldest children proceed out of the tower in every direction to collect food and taxes. I dreaded the days they came to my family’s village. At night my father raged. They’re not going up to the sky; I’ll send them all to hell, he’d repeat before using his belt on me.

“Stop staring, we require shade.” Pulling curly hair off her face, the wife from yesterday strode toward us. “I want a temporary wall set up immediately.” She pointed to the edge of the level. “The children are uncomfortable.”

Although the sky looked gray, we followed her instructions. I held up broad sheets of wood while Hus nailed them in place. There’s only a small amount of floor between him and the open air, not much more than the length of his foot but Hus stays calm. I feel proud of him recalling how much of a struggle it had been to contain my own fear.

Hus positions each nail and examines it before tapping in the point. During one swing a voice shouts. Hus’ hammer comes in from the side and bends a nail head once again. He tells me he’s sorry, holding his arms up.

“It’s all right,” I tell him as I begin moving over to extract the nail.

He yells for me to let him do it and puts his hammer’s claw over the nail head.

“Take it easy,” I caution as he pulls.

Instead, Hus grimaces as the muscles on his arm strain. As the nail finally comes free, I grab his body as it jerks back, arresting him just before the edge. Both his hands clutch me as he says thanks. The grip becomes stronger when voices below us scream.

I look down hoping that his falling hammer had only startled those below, but I spot a growing pool of blood.

“It was an accident.” Hus’ hands drop away from me. Tears shoot down his trembling cheeks. “I got startled. It wasn’t my fault, Attis. I don’t like this place. I shouldn’t be here.”

“None of us should,” I whisper as stomping feet march towards us. I hold my hammer behind my back and loom over Hus, ready to provide the mercy of a crushed skull. “We’ll explain to the Sire, and he’ll understand and forgive you, Hus.” I focus on his scalp pretending it’s a nail head.

Hus slams his shaking fists against his legs. “My father felt ashamed of me for being so jumpy so he sent me here.”

My hammer drops as my own body starts to tremble. It bounces once before stopping at the feet of the Sire, who has appeared from a lower level. With a lurch, he forces himself around it leaning on a staff that rises over his head. He stops in front of us as his wives, following from below, form an arc, each arm bending at the edge of the new level.

The wife who kept visiting us stands next to him taking one vein-lined hand. The Sire taps the staff as she speaks. “The children descend from the stars. One day this tower will take them home. They are sacred. And yet one of them is now soiled. How did this happen?”

Hus begins to stand up, but I move in front of him. “You honor us with your presence. I became impatient and lost control of my hammer.”

I went to my knees, my body tense with the expectation of the Sire’s staff assaulting me.

Instead, it touches the bottom of my jaw, lifting it. The Sire’s eyes stare down without blinking, the skin of the gaunt face drooping. He smiles, revealing yellow stumps of teeth.

The wife speaks again. “Attis, what an interesting young man you are. We think you’re promising; a sturdy vehicle.”

With a cough the Sire leans forward, placing the bottom of the staff under my chin.  He guides me up to my feet with a nod. Several of the taller wives’ circle around Hus.

The familiar wife continues. “But resilient Attis, why do you lie? An appealing young man like yourself dropped a hammer?”

Hus screams as he’s lifted above the wives’ heads.

“A pod guards the seed, Attis, but time wears it down.”

I shout for the wife to shut up as I begin to run towards Hus.

“You’re meant for a higher purpose, Attis. The time has arrived. Belonging here is such a privilege.”

I screamed as Hus went into the air.

Laughter and applause erupted from below.

Using both hands, I picked up my hammer and charged at the Sire.

He stood still as I buried the hammer into his scalp, the bone crumbling like an eggshell. I knocked the jaw away with two blows. The nearest wife reached an arm out ignoring my threatening hammer and pulled at the belt of the Sire’s robe. I swung at her head, but something seized my wrist. It shook the hammer loose as the front of my pants ripped open.

“Don’t look!” I screeched at the wife. “Please don’t look.”

Pain erased my mind.

To Be Continued…in Part 2: HERE